Mukade
by Goblin Cat KC
Summary: Leonardo and Michelangelo go out to Coney Island to watch a baseball game long into the evening. When they start home, they are waylaid on an errand with their brother, but as they sneak into the darkened warehouse, they hear a strange scratching along the floors...
1. Chapter 1

**Note**: Minor alterations to Rise of the Ninja Turtles - The premise remains the same, the character motivations are the same, but the oddball has been dialed back down to 1 and the wide presence of wildly mutated creatures dialed up to a more realistic 11.

* * *

From the top of the stadium, the beach stretched out to the ocean where the water touched the stars—impossible to tell where the sky ended and the earth began. To their left, Luna Park's ferris wheel sparkled over the golden lights and carnival music, and to their right, New York blazed with a summer intensity that drowned the sky in fluorescent flashes of neon. The salt breeze blew away the heat rising from the pavement, and the air was full of the clean scents of sugar and sand.

On nights like these, Michelangelo could almost forget that he wasn't invited.

"I wanna ride the ferris wheel," he sighed, dangling an arm over the side of the stadium's roof. His legs kicked back and forth in the air. "The cotton candy looks good even from here."

That was a lie. The cotton candy wasn't even visible this far away, but then Michelangelo didn't really want any. They had both filled up on stadium food. Beside him, sitting crosslegged with his sword on his back, Leonardo casually swept his arm over the roof, sending the wrappers of a dozen stolen corndogs and hotdogs and pizza and milkshakes tumbling down to the empty seats below.

"You're lucky Raph's not here," Michelangelo said.

Leonardo's smile said how much he cared about that.

"What o-ni-sama doesn't know won't hurt us," he said, flicking the last french fry pouch over the side. "Let the humans think there were kids sneaking in watching the game for free. S'truth, ain't it?"

The crack of the bat grabbed their attention, and Michelangelo cheered as the Brooklyn Cyclones took a homerun that brought three other runners across the base. The score was up by three, twenty against the Gotham Knights' seventeen, and amidst the cheers, Michelangelo took another long drink of soda and cast a look at the park.

"We could probably sneak into the candy place," he said. "You think?"

Leonardo's smile never changed even though his stomach clenched at all the reasons why he didn't think so. The lights were still on. There were still humans inside. The crowds weren't showing any signs of thinning. The game would be over soon and the small throng inside the stadium would soon empty out onto the boardwalk. Too risky, and if they were spotted, Raphael really would tear him apart. But Leonardo wouldn't let that ruin his little brother's fun.

"Oh no, I am not taking you to get anything else after the junk you just plowed through." Leonardo shook his head with a long-suffering sigh. "I remember taking you home after we hit the mall."

"That wasn't my fault," Michelangelo said, coming up on his elbows. "That was food poisoning."

"That was you eating enough for four turtles," Leonardo said. "Besides, we came for the game. We'll swing by, pick up a hat and a shirt, then head home."

And avoid the crowds and the lights and the music that made it hard to hear anything sneaking up on them. A large shirt would fit his little brother easily, and then Leonardo would send him off to bed while taking the scolding from Raphael and Splinter for being out so late.

"I wish Raph and Donny had come," Michelangelo sighed. "It sucks they don't like baseball."

Neither did Leonardo, if he told the truth. But he liked the ocean air and the stars and the time with his little brother.

Leonardo shrugged. "Their loss."

The last minutes of the last inning were winding down. As the people beneath them began to gather their things, Leonardo stood and stretched, then offered a hand down to his sibling.

"Let's get out of here before everyone else does," he said. "Beat the crowd."

Michelangelo gave a last look at the distant boardwalk, then took his hand with a last sigh.

The way out of the stadium was easy—just a slide down the stairs and then out over the balcony. The route took them right behind the souvenir stand for quick pickings, with Leonardo grabbing the shirt Michelangelo pointed at and grabbing a baseball cap to go with it. He made his brother put them on now, using them as camouflage, then led him into the long shadows across the parking lot. They darted between the cars, one step ahead of the humans, and Michelangelo followed him up onto the bus stop canopy.

"I figured we'd ride our way back," Leonardo whispered. "It won't take as long."

Beneath them, several humans sat restlessly on the bench, leaning against the walls, making phone calls and drunken conversation that easily swallowed any sound of their voices. But behind the shelter, a single human stood in a trench coat, his hat hung low over his head. Leonardo wasn't sure what the human was watching for, but just the fact that he was alone made Leonardo all the more wary.

"We're in trouble anyway," Michelangelo whispered. "We should bring back a pizza or something. A full Raph is a happy Raph."

"He's always full of something," Leonardo muttered.

A voice beneath them, dishearteningly familiar, answered before Michelangelo could.

"Now now, if you bad mouth him, I'll have to let him know."

"Donny!" Michelangelo jumped down from the bus shelter and put his arms around what was now obviously not a human in a trench coat.

Putting up with the hug with a fond sigh, Donatello glanced up at Leonardo. Any good cheer from the ball game had immediately fled, leaving Leonardo sullenly staring out toward the beach, at the parking lot, anywhere but at him.

"Don't feel too bad," Donatello said. "Cyclones versus the Knights? Of course you'd take Mikey to watch."

Leonardo didn't answer.

"And..." Donatello said, dragging out the syllable. "I got Raph to agree that your punishment is to help me cart things back from the hardware store."

Leonardo closed his eyes in long-suffering silence.

"Aww." Michelangelo looked up at him with wide eyes. "Are you really gonna be mean? I was the one that begged Leo for a week."

"Exactly," Donatello said. "You both should have said where you were going."

"Raph would've said no," Leonardo muttered. "He hates baseball."

"Like we ever get into trouble," Michelangelo protested. "We've never gotten seen or spotted."

"And the window smashing at the mall?"

"That was the mutant squirrels in their air conditioning," Michelangelo said. "You can't pin that on us."

"Well, Raph did, and he's pinning this on you, too." Donatello gently pushed him back, patting his head once. "So, do you want to come help me move some equipment, or do you want to chance what he'll do if you don't?"

The trick to dealing with his little brothers, Donatello had found, was to give them the illusion of choice. Leonardo was starting to get too old for the trick, but he would follow Michelangelo if only to keep him safe.

"...is it a lot?" Leonardo asked.

Donatello smiled. "Some wire, duct tape, nails, screws...a lot of little things. And a couple black lights."

Leonardo straightened, his eyes wide. "What?"

"I got a request from a certain pain in the shell to change out a couple light bulbs," Donatello said, raising an eyeridge. "So we can toss a few of those on the pile, right?"

With a rueful half-smile, Leonardo sighed to himself and slid off the shelter. He didn't look at Donatello but rather just slightly tilted his head toward him. It was a habit that hit Raphael's angry button, as if Leonardo didn't respect him enough to look him in the eye, but Donatello didn't begrudge his shorter sibling any of his little self-defenses.

The hardware store happened to be a Home Depot only a few blocks away. Leonardo gave his brother a curious look as they approached from the back, avoiding the main doors and instead heading up to the roof. Donatello noticed and read his meaning.

"Yeah, I'd rather hit a little store," Donatello said, waving them toward the access panel. "But this one's cameras are all outside or on the cash registers. We should be good if we don't go near the loading bays."

Which meant some cramped crawling through the air conditioning ducts, but they came out easily at the ceiling and climbed down the high scaffolding holding long pieces of lumber. Donatello peered around the corner, waving his siblings after.

"Relax," Leonardo whispered, "I don't think this place has security guards. Nobody's gonna steal piles of two by fours."

"I steal piles of two by fours," Donatello hissed back. "But I think you're right. Stay close—I don't want to get a nasty surprise."

Leonardo rolled his eyes at his overabundance of caution, but he dutifully followed at his heels. He glanced over his shoulder. At least Michelangelo was enjoying this unexpected outing, staring wide-eyed at this small glimpse at the human world, picking up anything that caught his fancy, nevermind if it was useful or not. Air fresheners, lawn lights, a whole box of candy bars—Michelangelo picked up a shopping basket and filled it up with spray paints, simply knocking them in as he walked by.

Betraying how cautious he actually felt, Leonardo froze at the loud noise, glaring at his little brother over his shoulder. And he winced as Michelangelo walked into him.

"Dude, what the heck?" Michelangelo rubbed his forehead where he'd hit it on Leonardo's shell.

That's when Leonardo heard it.

Leonardo waved his hand, warning him to stay quiet. In front, Donatello turned and noticed that they'd stopped. At Leonardo's startled look, Donatello went silent, slowly reaching for the staff slung on his back.

_What is it?_ Donatello mouthed.

Leonardo shook his head, straining to hear. He took a few steps forward, moving into the aisle, listening.

Scratches on tiles. Tapping points on concrete, then steel, then concrete again. Getting louder.

Much louder.

The tall shelves began to shake.


	2. Chapter 2

In a world of monsters and mutants, Donatello didn't hesitate. He grabbed his little brother's hand, turning Michelangelo and running with him toward the far door. Moonlight streamed in through the glass, throwing the reversed shadow of the garden sign on the floor.

"The garden doors," Donatello said, "we can break out that way, jump the fence—"

The thing that came into view completely blocked the light, giving just the silhouette of a long centipede twelve feet high, its mandibles clacking in the air. Its antennae waved back and forth, curling slightly at the ends, and its long body undulated as it stepped further out into the aisle, shaking off chunks of concrete and dust. Wherever it had come in from, it clearly had the strength to smash through bricks.

"Holy..." Michelangelo whispered.

Its head turned. They all would have sworn that it didn't have eyes and yet it stared directly at them, hissing as long strings of poison dripped from its mouth. The effect was hypnotizing in its grotesquerie, too horrible to turn from.

Two more centipedes came up behind it, only a few feet high, following the larger one's focus.

"Giant centipede," Donatello gasped. "Twenty one segmentations, chemoreceptors functioning to find prey, poor vision, at least two offspring—"

The centipedes rushed at them, closing the distance so fast that Donatello had barely swung his staff up before the large one was rearing back to bite. It rose into the air, halfway to the ceiling as its legs splayed out, ready to grab the nearest turtle.

The stench of caustic chemicals made Donatello flinch back before he recognized the splash of something on the floor, followed almost instantly by the strike of a match. Flames shot up and spread along the spill, blocking the aisle, and Leonardo hurled the empty container at the centipede to bounce uselessly off its carapace.

They were both on this side of the flames, but while Donatello and Michelangelo edged back, never taking their eyes off the monsters, Leonardo was instead climbing up to the next shelf of chemicals.

"Donny," Leonardo said, "take Mikey and run!"

"What?" Donatello shook his head. "I can't leave you behind! What am I supposed to do, go home and tell Raph 'hey, guess what, you won't have to fight for that last slice of pizza anymore'?"

"Unless you can run faster than those things," Leonardo said, grabbing another, larger, bottle of cleaner to refresh the flames, "one of us has to make a diversion."

"That's just a nice of way of you'll be its lunch!" Donatello said.

"So you make a diversion after you're farther away," Leonardo said, this time throwing a flaming bottle, driving the centipedes back several feet. "And then I can get outta here!"

"That is very suspicious logic," Donatello muttered, but he ran alongside Michelangelo down the aisle, heading for the cashier registers instead.

As they sprinted, they heard the familiar scratching and caught glimpses of the smaller centipedes moving beside them on the other side of the shelves. Donatello leaped and swung his staff in a broad circle, slamming heavy boxes off the shelves and onto the floor. There was a crack and a high pitched hiss.

"Take that, ya spawn!" he yelled, knocking off a kitchen sink that shattered satisfyingly over crunched carapaces.

Then the whole shelving started to rattle, to tip to one side, teetering at the edge—

Donatello looked up and his jaw dropped. Leonardo had scrambled up to the shelves, tied his grappling line to one end, and leaped on the next shelf over, straining to pull one of them sideways—why throw boxes when he could throw hundreds of pounds of merchandise?

"Stop, you'll—!"

The shelves toppled, and Leonardo disappeared as the heavy plumbing materials fell over the giant centipede. Caught between the long slats of steel, the monster hissed and thrashed, sending the next set of shelves over, then the next. Tools and plumbing and porcelain collapsed and crushed anything underneath.

Amidst the crackling of the flames, the store fell silent. A high pitched tinkling came as a few last pieces of porcelain pipes shattered on the floor, the rustle of cement bags breaking open and spilling powder. One of the shelves twisted and settled more firmly in place. Their brother was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh my god," Michelangelo breathed. "Do you think he got trapped in there?"

"He gets out of chores all the time," Donatello said, forcing a light tone. "You know he's fine. Come on, once we're at the door, we can do the distracting and get him out, too."

_And call Raph for backup, _he thought. _And Splinter. And maybe find Leo's broken body under all that. _

As they leaped over the gates between the cash registers, a bright burst of noise erupted behind them. Two more loud bursts came as they turned and landed, sliding on the smooth floor toward the exit.

The fire had spread, rising up the cardboard boxes and igniting the chemical containers in now constant explosions, and thick oily smoke gathered at the ceiling. From the clumsy piles of tools and sinks and wooden shelving, Leonardo pushed up out of the debris, shoving aside a bag of concrete, then turned and dragged himself free. Visibly dragging one leg, he moved away from the flames and pulled his sword as the pile began to tremble.

"Why's everything shaking?" Michelangelo asked nervously.

"I don't think that thing's dead yet," Donatello muttered. "Maybe we'll be lucky and it burns up—"

In the blazing orange flames, the giant centipede burst out of the broken slag—dark blood drenched one side and half of its legs were either bent backwards, broken or sheared off completely—but its mandibles were intact and its antennae pointed straight at their crippled brother.

"Behind you!" Michelangelo yelled.

Leonardo looked over his shoulder and found the creature coming much faster than he could.

Lit only by firelight, Leonardo started to laugh, helplessly. Hopelessly.

"Do me a favor and tell Raph I killed it with my bare hands!"

"Tell him yourself!" Michelangelo reached into the shopping basket he had only gripped tighter in his fear, flinging one of paint cans he'd grabbed.

The can flew like a baseball through the air, hitting the centipede's face, then dropped down to the flames where it exploded in a cloud of flaming yellow paint. As the centipede reeled backward, Michelangelo flung paint can after paint can, strafing to the side for a better angle. Finding a row of paint stripper cans by the register, he pulled the tops off and hurled them with unerring aim at the centipede's mouth.

To their combined surprise, the monster lunged at the last can and caught it in its mandibles—and the punctured chemical ignited along its face and the can exploded, taking off the top of its head in a spray of black blood. Leonardo ducked, flinching at the explosion of heat and light and sound that came from only a few feet away. The pile of rubble shifted as the body landed in a heap, followed by the soft sound of its innards spilling out of its shell.

Once he was sure the pile wasn't going to shift underneath him, Leonardo started to stand...and then quickly went back to his knees, one hand on the boxes under him. The room swam in a circle, making him nauseous, and he realized that being in the middle of a growing pyre of chemicals was dangerous in more ways than simply burning. The smoke, now thick enough to rise to the ceiling, stung his eyes and throat, and he dragged himself closer to the edge, finally sliding to the floor.

The crackling behind him was not the fire.

Knives cut into his leg.

He froze, choking, gasping for air that didn't come. Pain blacked out the lights and for a long moment he was only aware of the feel of sharp points cutting into red muscle and blood welling up over his skin. Twisting without thought, he wrenched free and stumbled, that leg buckling beneath him.

Michelangelo was yelling something, his voice growing closer, and Leonardo felt his heart beat unevenly—his little brother was coming to attack whatever had bitten him. He couldn't even remember what they'd been fighting in the face of that pain.

Leonardo pulled his sword, slashing at the shadowy blur crawling toward him, and a moment later there was the sound of a manriki-gusari hitting its head, forcing it backward only a step. His little brother's arm came around him, helping him back to his feet.

He heard it lunge more than he saw it, the hiss coming right at their faces—he swung automatically and the portal opened up in front of it. Startled that he'd actually managed it, he dropped the sword, and the portal shut with a splash of ichor across the floor.

Across the room, the head of the centipede rolled across the floor, coming to rest up against Donatello's foot.

"Yikes!" Donatello kicked it aside, his leather shell crawling at how it seemed to keep looking at him. "Gross gross gross..."

"Donny!"

The panic in Michelangelo's voice brought him running to meet him halfway. Leonardo leaned heavily on his little brother's side, his arm slung over Michelangelo's shoulders. He stared unfocusedly at nothing, and his breathing grew increasingly labored. By the time Donatello reached them, Leonardo tipped back, unconscious.

"I think it bit him," Michelangelo said, laying his brother on the floor. "I can't tell for all the blood."

"Yes, that means it bit him," Donatello said with more patience than he felt. "Go get a ton of bottled water and bring it back—"

"Uh, Don..."

About to snap, Donatello looked up.

Half the store was on fire, and the shadows of small centipedes flashed across the far wall before disappearing. Either the other small one had escaped, or there were more.

"Stay with me," he murmured, gathering Leonardo up in his arms. "Mikey, get the water on the way out."

First aid was hastily done at the far edge of the parking lot, using only a spotlight from Donatello's goggles and the orange glow from the flames beginning to crest through the roof. Washing off the blood revealed deep punctures in Leonardo's calf and the angry red lines of venom in his veins. Michelangelo asked what they should do, and not knowing anything else, Donatello put his hands on either side of the wound and tried to press inward, squeezing out more blood than black venom. He used his mask to wrap the wound, hiding the torn muscle from sight, tightening the makeshift bandage enough that Leonardo groaned.

Sirens shrieked down the lane as red and blue lights flashed across the pavement. Police and firefighters were speeding toward the store. By the time their trucks pulled around their corner, their headlights swept across an empty parking lot.


End file.
